by Chuck Miller
FIND IT
The Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom
Where: Interstate 87, Exit 20
When: Opens May 14
Closest TA locations:
Fultonville, N.Y.: I-90, Exit 28, 62 miles
Willington, Conn.: I-84, Exit 71 Ruby Rd., 118 miles
Binghamton, N.Y.: I-81 N Exit 2W, NY-17 or I-81 S, Exit 3, 135 miles
|
The Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom, a popular amusement park in Lake George, N.Y., turned 50 last year.
Originally created by industrialist Charles R. Wood on June 27, 1954 as a five-acre theme park to entertain Lake George's summer tourists, the park today encompasses 140 acres of rides, shows and attractions, while still retaining its original 1950's charm and innocence.
First known as "Storytown U.S.A.," the park featured child-sized buildings and gentle rides, all sharing a common theme of Mother Goose and nursery rhymes. Storytown was actually the first true "theme park," opening a year before Disneyland. Even today, The Great Escape has preserved the original Storytown section of its park, and children can still ride with Cinderella in a horse-drawn pumpkin coach; feed the three Billy Goats Gruff at the park's petting zoo; and play in the original miniature houses of the Three Little Kittens and the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe.
In 1957, Storytown expanded with a new park area, "Ghost Town," recreating a Wild West frontier town with a livery stable, sheriff's office and saloon. From the day Ghost Town opened, Marshal Wild Windy Bill McKay patrolled the streets for bandits and rustlers, handing out souvenir deputy badges to generations of children to help keep Ghost Town safe and to "make mashed potatoes out of the varmints who try to rob the bank."
"I met Charles Wood up here in Lake Luzerne," said McKay, who previously worked with Roy Rogers and the Cactus Cowboys. "Mr. Wood asked me, 'How would you like to be my marshal in my amusement park?' We got together and made arrangements, and then Ghost Town was built. After a few performances, Mr. Wood came to me and said, 'Bill, the way you do your show, you're going to be here a long time.' And he was right."
By 1984, Storytown was renamed "The Great Escape," and the park's first roller coaster, a double-corkscrew ride called "The Steamin' Demon," was installed. Today, the park boasts six wood and steel roller coasters, including "The Canyon Blaster," a coaster originally built for the Opryland amusement park; the free-wheeling "Alpine Bobsled" that mimics a run down an Olympic bobsled track; and the "Nightmare," a coaster enclosed in a darkened building, where the turns and twists are hard to see.
The Great Escape's most popular ride is a wooden out-and-back coaster called "The Comet." Originally built in 1948, Charles Wood acquired the coaster when its previous owner, an Ontario amusement park, went bankrupt. With top speeds of 55 miles per hour and an 87-foot drop on its first hill, the Comet has been ranked among the top ten wooden roller coasters in the world by the Association of Coaster Enthusiasts, and has appeared on several "Best Roller Coasters in America" television shows.
Today, The Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom is part of the Six Flags chain of amusement and theme parks, but the park has not forgotten its original charm. On June 27, 2004, fifty years to the day Charles Wood opened the original Storytown, Marshal Wild Windy Bill McKay helped cut a 50th-anniversary birthday cake for the park.
"I couldn't do this alone," said McKay. "The children are the stars of this show, and they've all become my junior deputies."
